Tag Archives for Nate Silver

I’m an independent voter, and I am not registered with any party. In the past, the Democrats allowed independents to vote in their primaries—the GOP never has—but I’ve read that this year, independents like me, that make up the largest voting block in the United States, have been shut out of the primary process in the Democratic Party too. I hope what I heard isn’t true.

According to Gallop, 43% of registered voters are political independents. Registered Republicans make up 26% and Democrats 30%. There are more than 146 million registered voters in the United States and in 2012, 126.144 million voted (almost 219 million Americans are eligible to vote but only those who are registered to vote, who vote, really count), and about 87% of registered voters turned out to vote in 2012. – Gallup

If this is true, then the two major parties have locked out the largest block of registered voters (62.35 million) when it comes to the primary selection process that helps determine who runs for president.

43.5 million are registered Democrats

37.7 million are registered Republicans

It’s obvious to me that in the general election, it will be independent voters that will decide what candidate wins the popular vote. However, 538 hand-picked Americans that belong to the Electoral College, have the final power to decide who the next president will be. The following video shows how the Electoral College Works and why our votes can mean nothing when it comes to electing a president.

The process for selecting electors varies throughout the United States. Generally, the political parties nominate electors at their State party conventions or by a vote of the party’s central committee in each State. Electors are often selected to recognize their service and dedication to their political party, and Trump is a Republican in name only and a GOP outsider.

What this means is even if Donald Trump (DT) won the popular vote—that I think is highly unlikely—in an election against the Democratic candidate, DT could still lose in the Electoral College.

Knowing these facts, I think the odds of DT becoming president are slim to none and here’s why:

According to Gallup, 26% of registered voters belong to the GOP and another 30% belong to the Democratic Party. Sure, DT gets a lot of media attention because he is winning in GOP primaries, but what does that really mean?

For instance, Pew Research Center reported that through the first 12 primaries, GOP turnout had included 17.3 percent of eligible voters. That translates to 6.57 million registered voters. In addition, Trump has 680 delegates versus 733 for the three GOP candidates still running against him. That means Trump has, so far, earned 48% of 26% meaning that about 18 million registered Republicans might support DT.

AND, this is a big AND, Nate Silver says that Donald Trump is really unpopular with General Election Voters.

Nate Silver says, “Trump is extraordinarily unpopular with independent voters and Democrats. Gallup polling conducted over the past six weeks found Trump with a -27-percentage-point net favorability rating among independent voters, and a – (minus) 70-point net rating among Democrats; both marks are easily the worst in the GOP field. (Trump also has less-than-spectacular favorable ratings among his fellow Republicans.) — fivethirtyeight.com

If Trump managed to become the GOP candidate for President in 2016, he may go down in history as the biggest loser ever with about 20 million votes to almost 100 million for the Democratic candidate. In addition, considering that the president is really selected by the 538 members of the Electoral College, I think Trump has less than a 1% chance of becoming president.

Donald Trump told CNN’s Chris Cuomo that if he doesn’t get the nomination after a brokered convention, there would be riots.

Will DT urge his followers to riot if he doesn’t win the White House, and will his Tea Party followers set America on fire if they don’t get their man elected?

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran,
who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).

Yes, it is true that cheap products are produced in China but quality products come from China too, and the level of quality, low or high, usually has to do with an American company—not China. If you hire someone to dig a hole in a field and you tell them to dig it two-feet deep when it should have been ten, is it the fault of the worker or the employer?

In fact, Americans invented the idea of planned obsolescence. The Economist says, “Planned obsolescence is a business strategy in which the obsolescence (the process of becoming obsolete—that is, unfashionable or no longer usable) of a product is planned and built into it from its conception.”

To have a better understanding of product quality from China, you may want to read this from Dan Harris at the China Law Blog. At the end of his post, he offers six points of advice on doing business with China, and one of them says, “Keep monitoring production quality, make sure to get written and signed records, and do not lower your standards for any reason (if possible).” This advice is offered to American companies wanting do do business in China.

Then I decided to see if I could come up with some stats and facts to compare the quality of US products with goods made by foreign companies.

I Googled, “poor quality products made in the United States of America” and ran into a hoard of sites bashing China for making poor quality products.

I didn’t ask for China but that’s what I got. Any site that mentioned America only bragged about how great Madein the USA was—I suspect that reaction of the politically correct mob is just misguided patriotism on steroids.

It’s great to love your country, but what about honesty?

There had to be a way to compare products made by US companies with those made by foreign companies, so I decided to search for lists that compared the quality of products by brand name. For example: cars.

Why did I decide on cars? Easy. I owned a new Ford Taurus once and a part/bracket was installed backwards at the factory that caused the brakes and tires to wear out every three to five thousand miles. It took more than a year and many dealer visits to discover the problem and have it fixed. After that experience, I bought a Toyota and still drive one.

And mainstream Western brands (for example: GM and Ford) builds vehicles in China with Chinese partners, but only for sale to China’s emerging middle class, which has created the world’s largest auto market.

I guess what I did next makes me not only a statistcs junkie but a facts junkie. For example, the top 10 highest quality cars of 2011, according to Forbes using the Initial Quality Study from J. D. Power and Associates, were:

1. Lexus LS (Japanese)

2. Lexus ES 350 (Japanese)

3. Porsche 911(German)

4. Hyundai Equus (South Korea)

5. Mazda Miata (Japan)

6. Ford F-150 (America)

7. Acura TSX (Japan)

8. Lexus GS (Japan)

9. Honda Accord (Japan)

10. Lexus IS (Japan)

11. Porsche Panamera (German)

I’m old enough to remember when Americans complained about Japan stealing jobs from the US and producing poor quality products—that is until Japan started to beat America by building better cars.

Did you notice that only one on the best quality list was made by an American corporation? However, for J. D. Power’s list of worst quality cars, twenty-one American vehicles made those lists. Source: The Car Connection.com

Small Sedans and hatchbacks:

1. Chevrolet Aveo

2. Chevrolet Cruze

3. Dodge Caliber

4. Ford Fiesta

Crossovers and SUVs:

4. Cadillac SRX

5. Dodge Journey

6. Dodge Nitro

7. Ford Edge

8. Ford Escape

9. Ford Expedition

10, Ford Explorer

12. Jeep Liberty

16. Lincoln MKT

17. Lincoln MKX

Minivans and Pickup Trucks:

1. Chevrolet Silverado HD

2. Dodge Ram 1500/2500

3. GMC Canon

Sedans and Luxury Sedans:

5. Buick La Crosse

6. Buick Regal

7. Chrysler 200

8. Dodge Charger

I suggest that anyone with an opinion about anything, on China for example, do some homework before jumping on any politically correct bandwagon probably being pulled by an ignorant, illiterate or functionally illiterate and/or lazy mob manipulated by American companies shifting the blame for poor products to China

Don’t forget Nate Silver’s advice: “It’s about looking for the right data, not necessarily the most obvious or easiest,” and after we looked at the data, we discover that American companies are selling a lot of poor-quality American cars and trucks to the Chinese.

Did you know that GM now sells more new cars in China than it does in the U.S? In 2011, GM sold 2,547,171 million vehicles in China, and Ford sold 519,390 (an increase of 7% over 2010).

In addition Sema.org says, “Chinese consumers practically worship prestigious brand names, and Jeep still carries a certain swagger in the People’s Republic of China,” wrote Mike Dunne, president of the Dunne & Co. consultancy, in Automotive News.

Chrysler currently sells the Jeep Grand Cherokee, Wrangler, Compass and Patriot models in China. All are imported, which boosts the price considerably because of an import tax.

His latest novel is Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper left-hand column and click on “FOLLOW!”

I read a post at Inside Tim’s Head, a blog hosted by Tim Nekritz, a stats junkie. The topic starts out focusing on Nate Silver, now considered a pop-culture star, who has been incredibly accurate predicting the results of the 2008, 2010 and 2012 US elections by crunching the right numbers. Then Nekritz’s topic shifts to how stats may be used to help Bloggers write smarter and attract more visitors that stay longer.

Tim wrote, Nate Silver cautions, “it’s about looking for the right data, not necessarily the most obvious or easiest.”

I agree with Silver—the right data (stats and facts) is important!

In fact, when I form an opinion, for example, on topics such as public education, religion, same-sex marriage, smoking pot, abortion, etc, I often look for studies on the same topic that are not necessarily opinionated but are stat/fact oriented to see if my thinking is valid.

That may explain why many of my opinions come with loads of stats and facts linked to primary fact gathering organizations.

I think that most information on a topic found through an Internet search using Google, for example, mostly leads to ignorant, politically correct, unsupported opinions, and if we join any mob that is currently political correct, we may eventually find ourselves on the flat-earth side of history a few decades or centuries from now.

Consider that for several thousand years it was politically correct to believe the Earth was the center of the universe and everything revolved around it. In the 8th century BCE, early Egyptians portrayed the earth as a flat disk floating in the ocean. The Hebrew Bible (you know the Old Testament) described a circular earth with a solid roof, surrounded by water above and below. In ancient China, the prevailing belief was that the Earth was flat and square.

In addition, the Catholic (Christian) Church persecuted scientists who formed theories the Church deemed heretical—two examples are Nicholas Copernicus (1473 – 1543) and Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642). It took the Church 350 years to express regret (October 31, 1992) for how the Church treated Galileo.

How long have we known the earth was not the center of the universe?

Copernicus waited until he was an old man to publicly announce his beliefs, because anyone who opposed the political correctness of Church doctrine was branded a heretic, and that would destroy your reputation, put you in prison, or even sentence you to death.

When I read the comments following Dewan’s piece, I discovered the usual China bashing about how everything from China is cheap and doesn’t last long. As usual, this politically correct gut reaction is mostly based on ignorance.

His latest novel is Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper left-hand column and click on “FOLLOW!”

– see what conservatives have to say about Nate Silver –
This video was published October 30, 2012.

Nate Silver’s forecast this morning has Obama winning 307 Electoral College votes to Romney’s 231 and this prediction is based on statistics collected from every political poll in America, and there are a lot of them from the local, state and national levels. Silver also has Obama winning the popular vote 50.5% to 48.3%.

In 2008, he correctly predicted the winners of all 35 Senate races and the presidential results in 49 out of 50 states. The only state he missed was Indiana, which went for Barack Obama by 1%.

In 2008, Silver projected electoral vote totals of 349 (based on a probabilistic projection) or 353 (based on fixed projections of each state).

Obama won with 365 Electoral College votes. Silver’s predictions matched the actual results everywhere except in Indiana and the 2nd congressional district of Nebraska, which awards an electoral vote separately from the rest of the state.

In 2010, Silver predicted 36 of the winners in 37 of the gubernatorial races—97.3% accuracy rate.

For the U.S. Senate Race of 2010, Silver predicted 6 of the 7 Republican winners—85.7% accuracy rate.

For the U.S. House of Representatives, Silver predicted 53 of the 63 wins by Republicans—84.1% accuracy rate.

– broadcast October 24, 2012 –

Silver’s prediction early this morning favors Obama 86.6% to Romney’s 13.4%. Silver bases his predictions on computed mathematical formulas and the results change daily. He does not base his predictions on a hunch or his own feelings. This is not an emotional, gut-driven biased response.

If Silver is close a third time, he will become a legend. By next Wednesday, we will know.

His latest novel is Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper left-hand column and click on “FOLLOW!”